


asking for divine strength to meet the demands of my profession

by dastardlyenables



Series: constantly stoneward [2]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: 4+1 fic, Gen, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23088817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dastardlyenables/pseuds/dastardlyenables
Summary: “He is lovely, thank you very much,” Obi-Wan retorts. “And I'm sure anyone he stabbed was rather desperately asking for it.”Given how often Obi-Wan was the individual in questioned getting stabbed, it's a wonder he invited such trouble on his head.Or, the four times Shank strong-armed his general into receiving proper medical attention (with help), and the one time Obi-Wan made sure Shank got it himself.  Set in the same universe ashunting towards hearstill
Relationships: Implied CC-2224 | Cody/Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Original Clone Character(s)
Series: constantly stoneward [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659436
Comments: 23
Kudos: 798





	asking for divine strength to meet the demands of my profession

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [hunting toward heartstill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22467715) by [blackkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat). 



Obi-Wan Kenobi melodramatically twitched on his pallet in the medbay as Shank cleaned yet another spot along his upper arm with a disinfectant pad. The medic turned to prep the hypospray injector with the next series of inoculation ampoules, and Obi-Wan shifted his legs, as though about to stand up. Cody took half a step back, settling much more squarely in the medbay doorway, and raised a singular brow, arms crossed. Obi-Wan huffed and settled back down with a grumble.

"I am not entirely unconvinced this isn't just a convoluted excuse to indulge in your general hobby of stabbing unsuspecting sentients."

Shank didn't look at his general at all, instead cocking the hypospray as though it were a standard blaster pistol, and carefully lining up the jet opening with the clean patch of skin.

"I'm not stabbing you, general. It's an ultra-thin jet of pressurized liquid," he stated, before depressing the trigger. Obi-Wan gave a slight grimace with the pinch, as Shank continued, his bland voice lightening as he grinned. "And even if it were, I have it on good authority that anyone I stab is rather desperately asking for it."

Both of Cody's eyebrows rose, before his own expression began to lighten into a grin as Obi-Wan very deliberately did  _ not _ splutter, thank you very much.

“So when did this happen?” Obi-Wan very much did  _ not _ approve of Cody’s tone, his normal straightforward voice tempered with that just the faintest warm curl of amusement-the only hint that he was near-laughing. Very alike Mace, in that way (and really, it was a wonder he hadn’t noticed the relationship between two of them before; they really did take up each other’s mannerisms far too readily.)

“During your, uh-” Shank waved his hand in a way that was clearly a method of stalling for a more tactful word than the ‘honeymoon’ that was floating heavily at the forefront of his mind; Obi-Wan couldn't help but muffle a laugh into a snort. “-Sith planet field trip.”

Cody’s face began to contort into something complicated, and Obi-Wan was about to step in to intervene when Shank continued to steamroll on, turning back to organize the medpack before storing it away. “I can make you a copy of the recording if you want one, Commander.”

“What!?” Obi-Wan whirled around to stare at Shank, even as Cody’s face began to relax back into amusement.

“Send it to me later, I want to have time to savor it.” Cody dipped his head and then turned to leave the medbay, meaning that Obi-Wan was free at last.

“Sir, yes, sir.” Shank responded, face still split wide with a grin. Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes at the medic.

“This isn’t over.”

“You’re volunteering to do a full medical screen, sir?” Shank asked, voice thick with feigned surprise. Obi-Wan scowled, hopped quickly off the pallet, and left the medbay with due haste. A tactical retreat was necessary.

* * *

“Even the youngest training padawan from the Halls of Healing in the Temple is perfectly capable of performing a simple physical. This really is all quite unnecessary, Shank.” Obi-Wan was very careful in projecting his out-upon resignation. Shank didn't even grant him the dignity of looking up from where he was staring down at his medipadd, eyebrows sharply furrowed, and rogue curl tumbling down his forehead.

"I'm sure they are, General.” Shank rapidly typed down some sort of note that Obi-Wan wouldn't be able to make out without craning his neck, so he didn't try. Anakin, on the other hand, was leaning back around and twisting awkwardly from the adjacent cot, trying to be nosy. Obi-Wan was in the middle of giving his former padawan a  _ look _ , and thus nearly missed Shank’s next words. “If you'd finally approve my requisition for your latest physical results on file, then I could just use what they have on record from your latest visit.”

Shank took half a step back, and flipped through his padd to bring up the dreaded requisition form, offering it out at Obi-Wan along with a datapadd stylus. 

“Once you sign on the line, General, I’d be perfectly happy to release you as soon as your physical results come in, so long as they are within the last two weeks–” Obi-Wan's next breath came out as a strangled choke. Anakin was nearly doubled-over with laughter. “–or... you can let me finish doing my job.” Shank’s fingers twitched lightly around the stylus, as though he was resisting the urge to twirl it in his fingers.

Obi-Wan let out a long sigh over Anakin’s cackles.

“Oh, just carry on with it, then.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“He knows you too well, Master,” Anakin said as he reached out to elbow Obi-Wan.

“He also bribes General Eerin to keep us all posted,” Kix muttered under his breath, jabbing Anakin in a way that may have been a little harder than necessary in response to all his flailing. Obi-Wan found he was not particularly sympathetic.

“What was that, Kix?”

“Nothing, sir. Nothing at all.”

* * *

It happened too quickly for Obi-Wan to properly register. One moment he was standing up to lean over the tactics table and discuss strategies with Admiral Yularen as Agen entered the room, and the next his head was spinning lightly and he was carefully slung half-over Agen’s shoulder with his legs held braced still as Agen made a beeline for the medical bay.

“This is quite un–” Obi-Wan began, but someone had already started to speak right over him.

“Thank you, General Kolar,” Shank said, as he rushed about already preparing a cot in the medbay along with a pre-sealed syringe and an IV-pump.

“Excuse me–” Obi-Wan tries again

“I thought you might be looking for him,” Agen stated, giving no indication Obi-Wan had been speaking at all. He set Obi-wan down on the prepared cot, but didn’t make any motion of letting go of his legs. Shank wheeled over a bone-knitting mechanism, along with a portable x-ray scanner, and with Agen’s help began to re-position Obi-Wan’s braced leg beneath both.

“I do appreciate it, sir.” Shank replied, calibrating something on the instrument before starting to physically strap Obi-Wan down. He slid another scanner against Obi-Wan’s hand, pricking his finger for a drop of blood that then started to read out an analysis. Whatever it said had Shank’s eyebrows sinking into deeper furrows and something that was just one hair too polite to properly be called a glare, but was certainly gearing up in that direction. “He was supposed to be  _ resting  _ his leg.”

“Now see here!” Obi-Wan interjected. Both Agen and Shank turned to look at Obi-Wan, Agen with an expression of polite neutrality belied by the glimmer of laughter in his eyes and Shank with a rigid set to his jaw, deeply unimpressed.

“It doesn’t count as resting if you  _ don’t sleep  _ and  _ keep standing on it _ , sir.” Shank and Agen turned in one movement back to each other, shutting Obi-Wan out of the conversation entirely. “General, if you could pass me that syringe over there while I set up this IV.”

Agen reached out and handed the syringe over to Shank, who had just finished feeding the IV into Obi-Wan’s secured arm. He inspected the syringe for any pockets of air and prepped the needle before promptly injecting it into the IV line. Obi-Wan could feel himself immediately start to feel drowsy.

“What did you–?” Obi-Wan could sense how his voice began to slur.

“Sedative. So you  _ sleep _ .” Shank reached down into a cabinet and passed a small medpack to Agen. “While you’re here, General Kolar, these are for Dogma, sir. He’ll know what they’re for.”

Obi-Wan began to drift off, mouth open on a protest before he realized that the Force was still easily within reach, a gentle cocoon of familiarity. He shut his mouth and grumbled snuggling further into the blanket suddenly drawn up by warm, calloused hands.

“And he’ll be–?” Obi-Wan could just make out the words as the hands shifted, two fingers testing his pulse gently before drawing away.

“Yes, sir. Now that we  _ know _ ,” and there was something deliberately pointed (but almost… teasing?) in Shank’s tone that Obi-Wan couldn’t quite place, “Kix, Aden, and I did some searching and found a handful of combinations that shouldn’t interfere with your connection to the Force so much.”

Agen responded again, quietly, but Obi-Wan was too tired to make sense of it anymore out anymore Obi-Wan shut his eyes, and let his own exhaustion and the sedatives carry him to sleep.

* * *

“Sir,” Shank began with the calm, flat voice of someone rapidly reaching the end of their increasingly finite patience, “you have a concussion.”

“Quite minor, I assure you. I fail to see why that–” Obi-Wan replied, trying to shift around in the chair he’s currently sitting in, while Cody—the miserable traitor—seemed to have a deathgrip on his shoulders and was refusing to let him stand.

“You  _ have a severe concussion _ . You need to sit down or lie down and stay still, until either I, or, better yet, a Jedi Healer, can do a scan of your brain and make sure that there isn’t anything wrong. That means no working. No standing up, no moving about, no looking at reports, and,  _ sith hells _ , absolutely no using the Force to do anything.” Shank’s voice quieted as he spoke, but the exasperation was still all there. He stepped away and dimmed the lights of Obi-Wan’s quarters manually, before typing something into the miniture control padd mounted on the wall for his room’s door. The padd blinked red and made an ominous, muted beep that had Obi-Wan wincing in spite of himself. Cody’s grip on his shoulder tightened further, and pressed Obi-Wan down into the chair to keep him still.

“I can’t tranq you–” Shank stated softly, with a brief pause for muttered  _ mando’a _ , which sounded suspiciously like ‘as much as I’d love to’ “–because the last thing your brain needs is a rush of more chemicals to process beyond all those released during the trauma itself. So  _ you _ have to be responsible about it, and Don’t. Do. Anything.”

“Sir,” Cody said, equally soft—Obi-Wan was starting to realize that he must be responding somehow, because of the way their voices changed as they spoke, “ _ please _ listen. For once.”

Obi-Wan shut his eyes, and reclined back in the chair carefully.

“Fine,” he said at last, and tried to ignore both the joint sighs of relief from his Marshall-Commander and his chief medical officer and the explosions of glittering stars behind his eyelids. This was going to be an exceedingly boring convalescence.

* * *

His ears are ringing hollow, and a thick, heavy throb starts up down at the base of his skull, but Shank only pauses enough to ensure his body isn’t shaking before he carefully continues to suture closed the large gash across the crown of Crys’ head. He’s nearly done lock-stitching the wound closed—even with the shooting pain down his arm—and he needs to stop the bleeding. Crys is out cold and bleeding heavily, and the high pitch of tinnitus in his ears has begun to echo through his head along with the mounting dull thud of pressure. His hands are still impossibly steady, even as one of them starts to feel numb—they are always steady, they have to be—and he ties off the sutures slow and careful.

Some brother has a grip on his upper arm and it shrieks with pain along with his neck. Shank can just sense himself being pulling him away, and he looks up to see two more brothers lifting up Crys to carry him out of the direct line of fire. They’re talking to him, but he can't hear the words coming out of their mouths. Their voices drag out like thick oil dripping down the edges of a can, lost in the cloudy haze and the ringing in his ears that is now reaching a high screech. Shank stumbles over his feet, and the combination of the noise in his head, the pain rocketing down his neck, and the shifting nausea of his equilibrium being thrown out of whack has him gritting his teeth.

Not a concussion, he thinks to himself, latching on to the train of thought and talking himself through self-assessment while placing one foot in front of the other. There hadn’t been any head trauma. Kinked artery or pinched nerves, maybe, but with the ringing in his ears and the shooting pain when he tries to turn his head it’s more likely some sort of neck injury, and that’s really not good. He starts to fall again, and shoves himself off the brother trying to help him so he doesn’t bring them both down. Shank tenses, braces for the fall and instead finds himself caught, back and legs carefully supported and drawn close to a robe-covered chest.

“Gen’ral?” Shank manages to force out, and his voice sounds thin. The arms around him shift just the slightest bit more to secure him tighter, and Shank can almost feel the coiling strength before General Kenobi leaps off and carries him through the air, the Force augmenting his jump to land, carefully and controlled, back behind their defensive lines.

“Rest, Shank. I suspect medical has a cot with your name on it.” Obi-Wan sounds mildly out of breath, but still chipper, and the deeper, unwavering calm in his tone can’t help but ease Shank as well.

“Y’sure there are any left without your name, sir?” Shank tries to say, but it comes out even more jumbled than he'd expected. General Kenobi still laughs, however, like he’d heard it just fine.

“Not this time.”


End file.
